


Den of Wolves

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 04:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21501532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: A Space Wolf falls to madness and worse in the aftermath of Magnus' wrath.
Kudos: 11





	Den of Wolves

Have you ever caught a glimpse, and known, utterly, sincerely, that you saw the truth of things? The fear behind the smile, the dagger behind the back, the liar who wore a friend’s face for so long? Having seen, how could you be wilfully blind again? How can you go about your life in ignorance? Would you not give anything -- _anything_ \-- to put out the eyes of those who watch you? To tear out the tongues of those who laugh at you?

You feel that heavy weight on your chest, the strangled beating of your two hearts, every choking gasp as you remember the moment the mask slipped. Breathe. Breathe. Your fire is burning low. They dance just outside, flickering flames, embracing embers. Were they brothers, are they demons? Are they? Were you? Remember what the Crimson King said.

Say to the shamblers: I know that Grimnar lied.

Speak to the shadows: I know where the thirteenth are buried.

Scream to the skies: I know, I know, I know.

You ate of the honey because it was sweet and it made you strong. This is an old lesson. Was it learned genetically via the Allfather, generationally passed from Prospero, or simply osmosis from these wretched, wonderful rocks? Your existence is an innately philosophical thing: there are no wolves on Fenris.

You are a Wolf. You are on Fenris. Were. Are. Or maybe…

Maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself. Be aware, Wolf. Breathe. Let the panic pass. Loosen your hold on the runes. Drift. Disassociate. This isn’t you. You were.. You are…

Longwalker Laeg, Laeg the Stormwall, Keeper of the Runes, _Bar-El Shalam_!

Fenris! Land of gods, wind, and seas! Krakens and icebeasts, you stalk the floes, O Laeg, shaman, priest, skald! You track their camps, their barrows, their feasts -- you take from them to make them strong, you take the young, the gifted, the fierce and proud! O Laeg, emptiness makes them fierce! They challenge you, they scorn you, Laeg the Limper, the Crone-Man, and you laugh away their spears with tongue of frost, eyes of storm! They fear, they respect, but always, always, they challenge -- as is right, proper, good! The tribes of Fenris stand against any hardship, any tyrant, allowing no master but themselves. You love them for it. They are your charges, your children, your congregation, O Laeg, lift your staff and slay the _qurozan_ , lift herbs from frozen ground to treat their wounds, lift their eyes, hearts, minds to the stars!

Doom comes from the stars. Doom. Fire. Fate. A one-eyed fate, a cyclopean doom, a crimson fire. You know of this from the runes and your brothers, your Wolf Lords, great Bjorn. But you knew more even then, didn’t you, O Laeg? You saw beyond the runes. You saw the ashes of Prospero, the million-million souls reaching out with bloody fingers. There are few spells more potent than that of begrudged life, of tormented sacrifice, and the King in Red has wrought one truly fine, has he not? There are fewer spells still more potent than those cast in justice, rightness of cause, purity of… faith, perhaps, O Laeg?

What did the spirit say to you, O Laeg? What truths did it reveal? You do not have the defences of your brothers, their runes, their totems, their blindness. You must confront the demon and know that it does not lie. You must look into the ocean of time and see ash. See murder. See the Wulfen unleashed. See Russ’ hypocrisy. See the ignorance. See the murder, perpetuated through millennia, all in the name of an unworthy father. See the THIRTEENTH. See the swinging censers. See through the smoke. See the armour and the altar. See it all. Hear it all.

Reality caves in. This is the glimpse. This is the truth.

How silent is your inner beast now, O Laeg? Would you think it would roar against this? That you would always be so loyal, so pure? Were you ever, Laeg Linebreaker? Cling to your titles like a drowning man to driftwood. Cling to your sanity, for all the good it will do. It was all lies. All of it. You are a cosmic cruelty, a black-hole blight, and now you know the truth and it makes you sick. You vomit psychic refuse into the aether, and all around, camps go quiet. What stalks these snows now, O Laeg? A shadow of your own making? Something from the outside?

Peel back their screams to find the laughter beneath, O Laeg. They are as tainted as you. You hunted for so long. You came across spent fires, hidden trails, violated corpses. They flee from it, the shadow, and you scour your memories as you do the tundra: what beast could this be? What Power does it owe allegiance to? Are the wounds you see made by claws or barbed whips, torturous implements of a daemonette? Are these frenzied bloodbaths wrought by servants of the Bronze Throne? Are these festering sores on frozen flesh a Nurgling’s doing? Are the infighting, the betrayal -- are they the work of a weaver of fate?

Laeg the Learned, who knows so much of what one should not, and wonders why -- still! -- that they would look down on him, lie to him, laugh at him, send him away from hearth and home. Knowledge is power, O Laeg -- hoard it well.

Roll your bones, O Laeg, and learn the way. Eat of the honey, O Laeg, because it is sweet and makes you strong. Sip the nectar, breathe the smoke, and drift, drift, drift… think not of your beast’s silence. Think not of the wolf’s shyness. Think of restitution, Laeg the Lifebringer, of tribes restored, of Fenris whole, of apocalypse averted. What can you see? What films are lifted from your truesight? Ah. At last. You see them clearly. The demons in grey. They burn so brightly with essence of the warp! How were they hidden from you?! The bones scream for vengeance! The runes demand blood! These creatures of Grey, these tainted knights, they slay your kin, your kith, O Laeg! Laeg the Luminous, outmatch them! Shine brighter, and dispatch the shadows! Gather your powers! The beast roars! To battle!

But it is not _your_ beast, is it, O Laeg?

Do you remember how it felt to look over their corpses, to feel the Curse subside? To feel the blood of brothers drip from your fingers? To realise that the Lords had let the Grey take from them, to slay your storm-children, your southern sons? Laeg the Lustreless. Your beast howls no more. It has not spoken in many moons. What lives in you now, O Laeg? What horrors do you chamber in your breast?

Breathe, Laeg. Breathe the ashes. Breathe the sins.

They are part of you now.

There is no going back.


End file.
